Canada to implement UNDRIP

Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, has announced that the Canadian government will fully endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Inuit leaders from Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada have drafted, negotiated, and challenged their respective governments to ratify the Declaration since the mid 1980s.

Enacted by the General Assembly in 2007, the UNDRIP recognizes indigenous people’s basic human rights, as well as rights to self-determination, language, equality and land, among others. As such, this means that indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent must be obtained before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that would affect them.